


falling down

by ghostscissoring (shmabs)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Art, Curses, Loneliness, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Touch-Starved, empath minghao, minghao baby i'm so sorry for writing you into your worst nightmare, past minghao/oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24186037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shmabs/pseuds/ghostscissoring
Summary: It’s five minutes after sundown and Minghao is taking his first breath of the day.
Relationships: Lee Seokmin | DK/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 22
Kudos: 203
Collections: Seventeen Rare Pair Fest: Round 1





	falling down

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SVTRarePairFest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SVTRarePairFest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  Minghao is cursed as a statue in a museum and can only come alive at night and is stuck by himself as he tries to break his curse. Then finally one night there is someone else stuck in the museum after hours, and that person might just be the help he's looking for.
> 
>   
> here's a very chaotic [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73wCkIi8VMStKSu0BEGsgQ?si=HB0tU-iLSwa2XAH8rQTzOw)

☀️

It’s five minutes after sundown and Minghao is taking his first breath of the day.

His body, solid marble just moments ago, melts into flesh and his lungs heave in a breath and it hurts, every time, the transition from lifeless statue to human but it’s also a relief, every time.

Minghao coughs, gasps, falls to one knee--he thinks it might bruise--and stays there until he can breathe easily, until his stone heart is replaced with a real one.

“Fuck,” Minghao says, to himself, because there’s no one else around except for people made of stone--full time, not part time like him--and he picks himself up to standing. He brushes at the knees of his pants and pokes ruefully at his sore kneecap. “Let’s get to work.”

🌕

_Work_ mostly consists of Minghao wandering around the different sections of the museum on bare feet, relishing the coolness of the tile in contrast, proof that his body is warm and real. It’s been a while since he’s had a new place to explore and he’s excited, even though it means that he’s starting over, again.

He was in storage for a while before this, but he’s not sure how long. At the very least, he’s thankful that he never fully wakes up when his statue is packed away, crammed into a wooden crate and carefully swaddled in cloth like a fussy newborn. The brief flashes of consciousness he got were bad enough, moments of awareness, of _darkness_ _suffocation_ _terror_ that he’s sure he would have nightmares about if he were capable of real sleep anymore.

Minghao’s not sure exactly how long he’s lived like this. He kept track, at first, because he thought that it was the thing to do, that it would be useful to see how long it took him to get back to his life.

He doesn’t bother anymore.

🌖

Time works strangely for Minghao. It swirls and twists around him like white water, rises up and threatens to drown him only to peter off into a trickle when he least expects it. But it’s always in motion, always moving forward while Minghao stays still, a heavy stone nestled into the silt of a fast-moving river, all of his rough edges being whittled away until he’s perfectly smooth and then further still, until he’s nothing at all.

Or at least, that’s what he knows will happen if he stays like this for much longer.

🌗

It takes Minghao the better part of two hours to make a full sweep of his new home, not because it’s particularly big but because the architecture itself is intricate and confusing. He goes from a traditional-looking atrium that contains mostly ceramic pottery and a few other sculptures and then finds himself walking down a large, hollow spiral that spits him out on the first floor. It’s dizzying, the way the museum is set up, and it gets even more baffling when he sees that the rest of the museum is all glass and steel and sleek lines, with photographs that are blown up to be two stories tall and gigantic drop cloths streaked with paint that are dangling from the ceiling, large enough that the edges of the cloth are almost kissing the floor.

This part of the museum clearly houses the more modern art, and Minghao finds a smile settling on his mouth like an unexpected guest. It’s been a long time since he was in a museum with more modern works.

It’s not likely to help him break this damned curse but, if nothing else, there’s new art to admire.

Not even the curse has been able to take that away from him.

🌘

The worst thing is that Minghao still remembers.

He had hoped that time would help dull his memory of _before_ , but he’s had no such luck. It’s probably the nature of the curse itself, that he can’t forget.

He remembers: the taste of Bohai’s smile, the champagne lightness of loving someone with his whole being, the way they would poke at each other until they dissolved into laughter, the soft wet heat of Bohai’s body opening up for him, the feeling of coming home.

He remembers: the gentle teasing that became less gentle over time, Bohai’s strained but still beautiful smiles, the vibrant bouquets that littered their windowsill with fallen petals, the way they tried and tried to work things out, to love each other the way they used to, easy as breathing.

He remembers: the bitter tang of Bohai’s frown, the screaming fights that neither one of them wanted but were incapable of avoiding, the heavy feeling of watching someone Minghao loved turn their back to him and, most importantly, he remembers the words of the curse that Bohai spit out of his mouth like bits of gristle.

The words weren’t that important, but the effects are. Minghao still doesn’t know the specifics, but he does know that no matter where he goes, how far he walks, that he can’t leave the walls of whatever museum he’s stationed in. That he can’t interact with anyone, no matter how deep into the night it is. And he knows that at five minutes until sunrise he’ll blink and find himself poised on his little pedestal, left arm outstretched, mouth slightly open in a wordless plea.

He hates it, his statue. The way he looks so open, so vulnerable, asking for something he was foolish to think he would ever receive. He wishes it would reflect who he is now, the anger that’s been growing like a cancer under the surface of his stone skin for years. It would be easier that way, to not be reminded of who he was back then.

But, of course, this isn’t meant to be _easy_.

Minghao isn’t even sure Bohai meant to do this at all. They were mad at each other, had been building up to _something_ for days, maybe weeks, and it had all exploded in their little apartment, a place that Minghao still aches for like a missing limb. Bohai’s magic was always so unrefined, temperamental for lunar magic, typically as consistent as the tides. Minghao had loved that about Bohai, the surprise of him, the bits of him that Minghao had never learned to understand but loved anyway.

He stops abruptly in front of a painting, abstract and green, and shakes his head viciously.

There’s no point, none at all, in thinking about that. What’s done is done, and intentional or not, Minghao is the one who’s living with the consequences.

“Living,” Minghao scoffs, then winces at his own melodrama and the rough scrape of his voice. “This isn’t living,” he continues, pausing to roll his eyes halfway through. “This is _bullshit_.”

His laugh is grating and horrible, but he feels better for hearing it. He doesn’t think he used to be this melodramatic, but he also used to be able to see the sun in more than just paintings, so he figures he can cut himself some slack.

🌑

No matter how long he’s had to get used to it, the sunrise always sneaks up on Minghao, sock-footed and catlike. One moment he’ll be looking at a painting, head tilted to the side, and the next he’ll be locked in place atop his little pedestal, dizzy from the curse’s magic doing its work.

The worst part, really, are the five minutes that Minghao is fully awake and aware as his flesh ripples back to the stark whiteness of marble, unmoving and cold. The moments when he can feel the changes taking root like vines, spiraling up from his feet and into the hard muscle of his legs, his torso, gripping stone fingers around his heart as it slows down, hardens, stops.

It’s not like being asleep, not quite. He can hear things, if they’re loud enough. The clacking of heels on hard floors, deep, booming voices that echo throughout the museum’s open spaces, the high-pitched giggles of children.

Sight is strange, something that doesn’t happen often, but sometimes he’ll wander around at night and be struck by an image, peach fuzzy and warm around the edges, that he doesn’t remember. Usually it’s just the vague outline of bodies, people crowding around his statue, admiring the skill it must have taken to craft something so lifelike out of marble. But if he’s lucky, and the light is right, he catches more depth than a simple silhouette, can see the curve of a stranger’s cheek, the glow of sunlight through their ears, the way they gesture to some unseen companion, excited but soft.

It should be a comfort that the world continues on without Minghao, but every day he can feel an ache inside him he’s been desperately ignoring deepen, grow wider, slowly but surely fissuring him down the middle.

Minghao blinks and startles, tries to look down at his bare feet before he realizes that he’s back on his pedestal, breath going shallow as the change crackles through him. He can see the color leaching from his outstretched hand as his flesh melts away to the uncompromising grip of marble.

He squeezes his eyes shut before his vision blurs and revels in the small mercy of stasis

🌒

The days in this new museum have passed by with flickers of light and loud, boisterous sounds, so much more lively than any other museum Minghao’s been to, and it helps to soothe the itch that’s constantly crawling under his skin.

His nights are much the same as always, walking slowly from exhibit to exhibit, rifling through the lost and found for anything that might be useful, or at least that might help the time pass.

He spends a few hours working at a half-finished Rubiks cube, turning it over in his hands until the colors all match up with one last satisfying twist, and a few more hours poking around on an unlocked phone searching Naver and r/curses for anything that might be helpful. When he finds nothing new, just like the last fifty times he’s tried, he resigns himself to using the phone to listen to music and starts digging through the rest of the miscellaneous items that were left behind.

There’s not much to look at, really, but he does find a beat up looking laptop bag that, upon closer inspection, is absolutely covered in meticulously stitched on Yu-Gi-Oh patches.

The absurdity of it makes a giggle bubble out of his throat, and it feels like a breath of fresh air.

When he was first cursed, he spent every waking moment scouring the museum for something that could help, an ancient relic or scroll or some kind of ritual he could use to force the curse out of his body and get back to his life.

Back then, he would readily smash the protective glass cases that held delicate pottery and paper so old and brittle that it would disintegrate under his hands if he wasn’t careful. The alarms would ring, the police would come, and Minghao would stand there, helpless and invisible, as they looked over the security footage that had mysteriously been deleted and argued about what could have possibly happened.

He begged for help on bright pink sticky notes and left them stuck to doors and desks and windows, but that didn’t work either, and eventually he stopped trying. Minghao knows he should be trying harder, doing more, but he’s already done everything he can think of, as well as about a million things he found on r/curses, and none of it worked. And he’s so tired, all the time now. He barely has the energy to stretch and do his nightly rounds anymore.

At this point, he knows it’s futile, but still every night he checks the exits, lets his heart race with a flicker of hope every time one is unlocked and he can push the door open.

Every time, the invisible barrier that keeps him trapped within whatever museum he’s been placed in pushes back. It doesn’t sting as much as it used to, being so close to freedom and unable to follow through. He tries not to dwell on it too much but, fuck, he _misses_ the world. Misses being some small part of it, even if he had always considered himself more of a loner.

Minghao might be an empath but he never much liked spending time around crowds, or even people he didn’t know well. Always more suited to sitting quietly and reading in an out-of-the-way corner, or holing up in his studio to choreograph a new dance.

He thinks now that he would do anything for a packed club, a loud room full of strangers that would brush up against his exposed skin and bombard him with the riotous tangle of their feelings, then move on just to be replaced by someone else.

When he blinks and finds himself poised atop his pedestal, it’s more of a surprise than usual. He’s been so tired lately, so run down, he can barely keep track of the time.

It’s a relief, to close his eyes and surrender to stone.

🌓

Something is wrong.

Awareness returns to him slowly, dripping back into his consciousness like acrylic paint, thick and cloying. It takes him ages to open his eyes, to force his feet to unstick from his little pedestal, to drop onto the cool marble floor and feel his lungs struggle to fill with air.

Something is _wrong_.

He grabs at the hem of his shirt with clumsy fingers and rucks it up and--

His torso is hard and pale, thin gray lines running through it like an approximation of veins, but when he brushes the tips of his fingers against his chest he shivers from the cold. He watches with wide eyes as the sickly paleness of stone leeches from his skin slowly, so slowly, until he’s sure that he’s all flesh and blood and sinew, and then he rips his shirt off and presses his back into the cold floor until his shoulder blades ache.

“I’m here,” he says fruitlessly, desperately. There’s no one to hear him. “I’m still here, I’m alive, I’m warm. I’m _alive_.”

Minghao is sure the curse doesn’t give a shit.

Eventually, he gets up, legs still shaky and coltish, and makes his way downstairs. He checks the calendar on the welcome desk and has to steady himself against the rolling chair because according to this he’s been--he’s been a fucking statue for four whole days.

And, more importantly, four whole _nights_.

That’s never happened before. The only time Minghao doesn’t come to at night is when he’s being moved.

Is the curse waning? It must be, for this to be happening now. Its power must be dimming, and instead of releasing Minghao from its clutches it’s found a way to keep him locked inside his stone cage, forever.

It’s almost funny, Minghao thinks, how things always seem to fall apart around him.

He's never been left wanting for time, always felt like he was drowning in the overflow, a riptide with an iron grip around his ankle pulling him under.

Now, he has ten hours until sunrise.

The pit inside his belly howls at him, the fear and anger and loneliness of an injured animal rising up and clawing at his throat, hands twitching with the urge to wreak havoc. He wants to throw the rolly chair through a window, wants to tear down the huge canvas hanging daintily from the ceiling, wants to destroy this place before it swallows him whole.

Minghao knows he’ll be forgotten, that no history book will make note of him, but he could leave his mark on this museum, if he wanted to.

He looks at the wall of windows looking out on the sculpture garden, slightly hidden from view by a bank of tall hedges flanking the paved walking path that goes straight to the entrance.

Minghao glances at the clock and thinks about how the paint-splattered canvas would look wreathed in flame.

He’ll wait.

🌔

The large front doors--all glass, almost a full story tall--were somehow overlooked by the person closing up tonight, and remain unlocked.

By the time Minghao is getting around to checking all the exits, it’s almost nine, and he’s so surprised by the lack of resistance on the front door that he would have tumbled straight through the open doorway if not for the barrier. It doesn’t hurt, but Minghao feels a spark of electricity dance up and down his spine before he can get his feet under him and back away cautiously.

“This is just cruel,” he says aloud, looking at the sculpture garden taunting him right outside.

He holds the door open as best he can and sits down, resting his back against the barrier so he can feel the night time breeze, the faint scent of cut grass making goosebumps raise on his arms.

He lets himself drift, mind blank and limbs heavy, all the weight he holds in his body lazily making its way to his head until he feels it start to droop, chin tucked in tightly against his sternum. It helps, somehow, even as he feels the anger he holds in his gut start to simmer and boil.

It’s not fair.

 _Nothing is ever fair,_ he reminds himself, and heaves a sigh, lungs expelling all the fresh air he’s been gulping in like a guppy.

The barrier makes a hollow _thunk_ when he knocks his head against it, a reminder that it’s real, as invisible as it is. He does it again, a little harder, hard enough to smart but not bruise.

He does it one more time, rule of threes, but instead of the hollow noise from before it sounds distantly like knuckles on glass.

When he twists around to see if something happened to the door his heart seizes up in his chest, arms and legs moving of their own accord to scamper away from the doorway. There’s someone coming toward him, walking along the side of the building towards the entrance, tapping their knuckles against the bank of windows every few feet.

Minghao realizes he’s heaving, gasping for breath, and he shakes his head again. Forces his breathing to slow and deepen. Taking back control.

This person, whoever they are, won’t be able to see him anyway. That’s the way it’s always been.

“Hello?”

The movement of the door slowly swinging shut catches their attention, and they hurry forward with a muffled curse. They grab the handle just in time and let out a gusty sigh, and Minghao is relieved that he won’t have to interact with whoever this is and whatever it is they want.

“Hi, I’m so sorry, but is it okay if I come in?” The man asks in Korean, and Minghao is glad that this person won’t be able to hear him. Minghao’s not exactly bad at Korean, considers himself relatively fluent, but it’s hard to keep up your conversational skills when you don’t have anyone to talk to.

“Sure sure, whatever,” Minghao says, because even though this person won’t be able to hear him it’s still nice to pretend that he’s talking to someone. He’ll take what he can get.

“Ah, thank you! I wasn’t sure if anyone was working this late but I really need my bag and this was the only time I could make it. Sorry I wasn’t able to come by earlier, I hope this is okay!”

Minghao thinks it’s probably rude, the way he’s staring at this guy so intensely, but he can’t bring himself to stop. It would seem, if Minghao isn’t mistaken, that this guy is talking to _him_.

“You can see me?” he asks desperately, refusing to wince at the hollow croak of his voice. He stands up, walks a few cautious steps towards this stranger and feels ready to take flight at the way his eyes widen a bit.

At the way they track his movement.

“Yes?” The man smiles, even though it’s clear that he’s confused. He takes a closer look at what Minghao’s wearing - his soft, flowing clothes and bare feet - and tilts his head to the side like an inquisitive puppy. “I’m so sorry, are you not the night time security guard?”

“No,” Minghao laughs. He starts moving forward with more purpose, ready to be _out_ , out in the world again, out of the slew of museums that have made him feel like a prisoner these past few years. Now that he’s looking for it he can feel it, a lightness to his body, a soft exhale, a release.

He walks past the man, so close that their shoulders brush together, and Minghao almost stumbles at the bright spark of _feeling_ that zips through him from the contact, something sunny and kind and so sweet it makes his skin buzz. It makes Minghao want to stop, ask for this stranger’s name, who he is and what he does and how he lives to be so full of light. But Minghao doesn’t have the time, can’t let himself be distracted when freedom is right at his fingertips, warm and pulsing.

The ten feet between him and the door closes rapidly, until he’s there, putting all his weight behind his hands as he puts them out in front, throwing the door open with enough force to make the wall of windows hum in their steel frames as he tumbles forward, into fresh air and starlight.

There’s hard pavement beneath his feet, cool from the night air, and Minghao thinks he could weep.

He’s outside.

A few feet away is the freshly cut lawn, and Minghao drops to his knees as soon as he feels the tickle of grass.

Suddenly, the days and months and years that he’s spent like this come crashing down around him, and the air that was so light in his lungs just minutes ago turns to the crushing heat of fire, every shallow inhale burning its way down his throat. Is this what freedom feels like?

He shoves his hands into the soft earth, rips up the green of the grass until his palms are full of dark soil and yells, as loud as he can. It echoes in the open space, calling back to him like a reassurance. _You’re here_ , it says. _You’re out_.

“What’s going on?”

Minghao snaps his head back in surprise. The man is standing just inside the door and he looks worried, maybe a little scared. No one’s ever been _afraid_ of Minghao before.

“Are you a robber?”

Minghao snorts a laugh and gestures at himself helplessly. “Do I look like a robber?”

“Uhhhh.”

“No,” he says, “I’m not a robber. My name is Minghao, and I’ve been stuck in that museum for the past two weeks.”

The man looks horrified, and suddenly Minghao wants to dig further into the soft soil until he can sink into it fully, until the only thing that can see him is the moon.

He doesn’t remember how to talk to people.

If he was capable of dreaming, he’d think this was one. Not quite a nightmare, just eerie and uncomfortable and strange, Minghao on his knees on the damp lawn, the black of the soil streaked halfway up his forearms and dug into the creases of his palms, his fingernails. It doesn’t seem real.

The man, now that Minghao is paying more attention to him, is dressed in faded jeans and a button-down that’s seen better days, complete with a few dark splotches that Minghao recognizes as coffee stains. If he didn’t look so scared, face twisted with confusion and fear, Minghao thinks he’d be handsome.

“I’m really not a thief, I promise,” Minghao tries to reassure him. Judging by the way the man backs up a few steps and reaches for the phone in his pocket, he guesses he wasn’t successful.

Minghao feels the adrenaline and relief and pure, unencumbered joy recede like the tide, scraping him raw with the rough grit of sand.

He’s going to call the police. He’s going to call the police, and Minghao will be locked in another cage and that--that can’t happen. He won’t let that happen ever again.

“I’m not a bad guy,” Minghao croaks out as he stumbles to his feet. This will be fine. He’ll be fine.

He digs his toes into the lawn and starts to run.

It’s terrifying, exhilarating. Both the aching stretch of his legs and the urgency making a home in his throat are unfamiliar and he stumbles, scrapes his dirty palm on the pavement as he catches himself and gasps at the pain. He keeps going.

But the throbbing heat in his hand isn’t enough to distract him from the trickle of _wrong_ that starts to fill the empty space in his chest cavity. He doesn’t get very far until his limbs feel like dead weight and the trickle becomes a river, a flood, a dam bursting. It’s hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to _think_ , but it doesn’t matter. He has to get away.

He pushes forward, putting one heavy foot in front of the other until the weight of it all drags him to his knees.

Minghao crawls.

He goes until he’s shaking, screaming, until he feels more tears start slipping down his cheeks, until there’s a pause where the whole world stops and Minghao feels relief wash over him before the awful fullness slams back into him like a tidal wave, and then he can’t feel anything at all.

🌕

It’s two hours after sunset and Minghao is heaving for breath, gasping, gagging at the acrid taste of iron in his mouth. There’s dirt on his arms and blood oozing from his palm and the knees of his pants are creased and spotted with green and it was _real_ , he doesn’t have much time left and he was out, why is he back?

The anger and animal fear that’s been simmering under his skin flashes, burns hot and sharp like a brand as he heaves himself up and stumbles off his pedestal. He can still feel soil and clumps of grass pressing into the bottoms of his feet as he starts moving back toward the exit.

He doesn’t know how, or why, but the man must have done something to him. This wouldn’t be the first time he was fooled by someone’s surface emotions, drawn in by a quick heady touch that hid something darker.

Minghao should have expected this, should have known that, with his luck, the first person he’d meet would want to fuck him over. It seems like it’s simply Minghao’s lot in life to be a plaything, a puppet dancing at the end of a string for some higher power’s amusement.

Minghao is sick of it.

He won’t let it happen again.

There’s a thought that Minghao doesn’t want to acknowledge niggling at the back of his head as he picks up speed. It sounds a lot like his mother, chiding him for acting without speaking. He’s always known that it was fists and blood and gritted teeth that got things done, not sweet words and empty promises, but his mother would do her best to hold his clenched fists until he calmed and let her wipe the smears of red from his nose and mouth, a benediction.

“One day,” she had said, when Minghao came home with knuckles bruised and heart beating too big for his thin chest, “you’ll find out that anger isn’t enough anymore.” She sighed when Minghao simply swiped at his split lip in response. “I hope it’ll be soon.”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t, and he hasn’t been able to see his mother for years because of this curse, and anger is the only thing that’s been with Minghao all this time, the only thing that’s kept him alive. He wants to lose himself in it.

He rounds a corner and sees the man from before standing right where Minghao remembers, rooted to the spot like _he’s_ the one trapped in a cage, and Minghao feels like he has wings ready to unfurl and send him rocketing into the stratosphere, feels like he could breathe flame.

The man turns towards the echoing sound of Minghao’s footsteps and for a moment all Minghao can see is Bohai’s face, beautiful even twisted with rage as he screamed words at Minghao in a language of power, a language Minghao didn’t understand, and Minghao--

Minghao slows down.

Stops.

Closes his eyes and heaves in a shaky breath, feels the way his lungs and ribs expand, taking in as much air as he can. Taking up space.

When he opens them, Bohai’s snarling mouth is gone, leaving the man standing there, alone, looking at Minghao.

He’s crying.

The anger that’s been tearing through him like a forest fire calms, quiets, crackles down to glowing embers. His mother’s voice is ringing in his head like a bell and Minghao feels like a teenager again, young and scared and only sure about the safety and comfort of his home. _You win this time mama_ , he thinks fiercely as he takes a few more slow steps forward. The man is still crying, still standing in place and shaking as he watches Minghao move closer with nothing but wide-eyed fear.

“Are you okay?” he calls, voice gruff and cracked. His throat feels like sandpaper.

“You--” the man starts to say, and then sinks to his knees unsteadily. Minghao quickens his pace. “You disappeared. You were right out there, on the grass, you were _screaming_ , and then you just--”

“That wasn’t you?” Minghao interrupts suddenly, stopping a few feet away. It sounds like an accusation.

“What?”

Minghao doesn’t know how to explain. He’s been stuck in this loop for years, has had more than enough time to work out a plan for every possibility, every contingency--except, it seems, one where he has to explain his situation to someone.

He must look like a fool, mouth open, mind racing and heart finally starting to slow, but he can’t think of anything to say to this stranger who, for the briefest moment, felt like his savior.

His brain catches on something, and he blurts, “What’s your name?” before he can stop himself.

“Um. I’m Seokmin,” the man--Seokmin--says. He looks a little less frightened now, a little less like he’s about to shake out of his skin. “You said--you said your name was, uh, Myungho?”

Minghao squashes a wince at his pronunciation and nods assent.

“Was that not right? Did I get it wrong?” Seokmin asks, and Minghao does wince now, at the way he sounds nervous, a little upset. Like Minghao might do something bad if he gets it wrong again.

“No no I just,” he sighs, continues, “I mean, in China it’s pronounced a little differently.”

“Oh,” Seokmin says, and leaves it at that.

Minghao feels wild-eyed, off kilter, like he’s walked up a flight of stairs and one of them vanished right as he put his foot down. What is he _doing_? Making small talk with this stranger? He was out, how had he made it out?

He stares at Seokmin, at the glitter of tears slowly drying on his cheeks, and startles when Seokmin turns and they make eye contact.

“How did you let me out?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure now that Seokmin is just as clueless as him.

“I didn’t? You let me in,” Seokmin says, but he sounds lost.

“Fuck,” Minghao grits out, and clenches his fingers into fists so tightly his palms ache when the word makes Seokmin flinch back. “This is going nowhere. What time is it?” he asks suddenly, because his whole body feels sluggish and heavy the way it does when the sun is about to rise. He hasn’t done anything, figured out anything, and he might never have another chance.

“It’s almost ten,” Seokmin says quietly after he checks his watch. “Wait, actually,” he taps at the watchface insistently a few times and then sighs, heavy and put upon, before fumbling in his pockets and pulling out a phone. The screen is cracked, but Minghao can see the large numbers stating it’s half past ten. Less than seven hours until sunrise, then.

“Okay. Okay, I need to ask you something.” Minghao feels like he might vomit, stomach crawling up into his throat from nervous anticipation, the familiar and acrid taste of fear laying thick on his tongue. If Seokmin doesn’t help-- _and why would he?_ Minghao can’t help but think, why would he help when Minghao is nothing but a stranger with an unfortunate curse, locked away in a museum.

Time is running out, but why would that matter to Seokmin? If their places were reversed, Minghao is sure that he would take his leave at the first hint of trouble. Seokmin could, and probably should, do the same.

Still. Still, Minghao aches for freedom.

“I need to ask you something,” Minghao repeats. “But I need to tell you something first.”

It spills out of him like bathwater, sloshing over the sides in fits and starts until he grips the still-damp knees of his pants and forces himself to continue, to try and explain everything, all of it, to Seokmin who just sits there and listens and looks at him with wide, sharp eyes.

The only thing he keeps for himself is Bohai’s name, and the fact they were lovers. Minghao needs help, he knows that, but he already feels cracked down the middle, fragile. He doesn’t want to show the whole of himself to Seokmin, even if there’s something about him that makes Minghao want to lean forward and free fall into his orbit.

It’s strange to be looked at, Minghao realizes, after he stutters to a stop and glances up from his dirty fingers to see that Seokmin is still staring at him. It’s unfamiliar, a little unsettling. Even more than that, Minghao thinks he likes it.

“You said years?” Seokmin asks. Minghao nods unthinkingly and averts his eyes. It’s still overwhelming, to be seen by someone else. “You’re an empath and you’ve been stuck like this for _years_?” Minghao nods again and waits for Seokmin to continue. It’s quiet but familiar. Minghao can’t remember the last time he felt cradled by the heavy emptiness of night instead of suffocating on it.

He thinks Seokmin might be taking a long time to say anything, but it’s been so long since he’s actually talked to someone that he’s not entirely sure if he’s just forgotten how to do it. It’s not until he hears a distinct sniffle that he looks up, and sees that Seokmin has started crying, again.

Before Minghao can say anything, Seokmin scoots a few inches closer to him and places a warm palm on the stained knee of Minghao’s pants, squeezes slightly. “I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Minghao can’t stop looking at Seokmin’s hand. He wants to take it in his, see if it’s really as warm as it feels. Even more than that, he wants to lose himself in the crush of someone else’s feelings. The last person he touched, the last person he _felt_ , was Bohai, and just the memory leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Seokmin takes his hand back to swipe at the tears on his cheeks, and Minghao twitches with the urge to reach out.

“Sorry,” Seokmin repeats, “sorry, I know I’m a crybaby. It just sounds so hard, being all by yourself for so long. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll do what I can.”

Minghao blinks. Tries to hide the twitch of his lips, the way his whole body wants to slump down onto the glossy, uncomfortable tile of the floor in relief.

He’s not alone in this anymore. And maybe Minghao didn’t expect his savior to be an overworked, underpaid elementary school teacher who cries at the drop of a hat, but he’ll fucking take it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Seokmin’s eyes curve in a smile.

Minghao claps his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”

🌖

“You were here,” Minghao muses, walking slowly along the bank of windows with Seokmin following a few steps behind, “and I was sitting against the door. And then you knocked, and I moved away…” he trails off, going through the motions in his head, trying to analyze them for anything he could have done that was different than usual. He was more stressed this time, certainly, no longer confident that he’d be able to finagle his way out of the curse with the time creeping closer and closer to sunrise. But if it was stress that broke the curse, Minghao should have been out a long time ago.

“I’m not sure if it means anything, but I didn’t even notice you until I was pretty close to the door. I tried looking in the windows down here to see if anyone was working,” Seokmin says, voice thoughtful, gentle as he points to a spot about fifty feet away, “but it didn’t seem like anyone was inside, so I thought I’d try knocking. And then I saw the door swinging shut so I ran to catch it and then--then I saw you.”

Minghao frowns, wrings his hands together. “You should have been able to see me though? I was sitting right inside the door and you didn’t notice anything?”

The gears in Minghao’s head are spinning maddeningly, dizzyingly. He feels like he’s missing something. He _knows_ he’s missing something.

“Should we...maybe we should try and walk through everything?”

Minghao looks at Seokmin, appraising. It’s a good idea, objectively. Going through it all step by step, and not just in Minghao’s head. But that means Seokmin will have to leave him alone in the echoing emptiness of the museum entrance, and Minghao can already feel the chill of dread creeping up his spine at just the thought.

“Ah, sorry, that’s,” Seokmin says when Minghao doesn’t respond, stuck in the quicksand of his own head, “that’s a dumb idea probably, just ignore me.”

Minghao blinks, startled at the change in Seokmin’s tone. He pushes down the fear and steels himself. “No, you’re right. Let’s try it.”

Seokmin nods and smiles, small but bright, and Minghao makes himself look away before he can stare for too long. It’s a simple joy, to be the cause of someone else’s smile, and Minghao has missed it, feels himself relax under the gentle weight of it.

“I’ll be right back,” Seokmin says as he’s passing through the doorway, and Minghao nods, stoic. He trails after Seokmin, watching as he strides purposefully across the grass, passing by sculptures that tower over him without a second glance. Minghao stops in the open door, bringing one hand forward to press his palm against the barrier carefully, buzzing with nerves.

His hand passes through without issue, not even the slightest pressure pushing back against him.

He pushes down the surge of relief, of excitement, that wants to sweep him away, the memory of that awful, painful pressure still fresh in his mind. He brings his hand back to rub at his eyes, and when he glances up a few seconds later he can see Seokmin has stopped and is standing a ways away from the front entrance, looking at the door intently, brows furrowed.

“Seokmin,” he calls out after another few seconds of silence.

No response.

He feels his heart thudding in his chest, palms going cold and clammy. When he reaches forward this time, the barrier greets him like an old friend, solid and unmistakable. “Seokmin!” He yells it this time, loud and echoing in the open space, but somehow Minghao knows he can’t hear.

There’s a breathless moment where Minghao is convinced that Seokmin will turn around and walk away, will leave Minghao banging on the barrier that separates him from the rest of the world while he goes back to his normal life, and Minghao might be bitter about it, but he understands, really. He thinks he’d do the same.

But then Seokmin shakes his head and takes a few steps forward, and the barrier that Minghao has become so familiar with no longer feels solid and impenetrable - when Minghao leans his weight against it, he can feel it give just a bit, and a little of that wrong feeling pushes into the back of his skull again.

“Seokmin, it’s working,” Minghao calls out, unable to tear his eyes away from the line of Seokmin’s body as he walks slowly closer. Each step allows Minghao to move a little deeper into the courtyard, until eventually Minghao feels something in the atmosphere shift abruptly, a summer storm in reverse, as the barrier parts like so much tissue paper and he loses his balance, tumbling forward into the sculpture garden once more.

It’s funny, how uncoordinated he feels when he used to call himself a dancer. He brushes some of the grass off his pants and, now that he’s looking for it, he can feel the way the tightness of his skin, the heaviness of the curse itself, dissipates into the open air and leaves him feeling lighter, more present in his body.

He rights himself just in time to see Seokmin walking quickly, making a beeline for where Minghao lays sprawled out on the ground. Minghao can’t take his eyes off him. It feels like Seokmin has his own gravitational pull, and Minghao missed the weight of it.

“I couldn’t see you,” Seokmin announces when he gets within a few feet of Minghao. He sits down abruptly, so close their knees are almost brushing. “I got over there and turned around and--I forgot.”

He’s chewing on his lower lip as he looks at Minghao with an expression Minghao can’t name--fear, sort of, and concern, and worry, and something else, all wrapped up together, and Minghao doesn’t know what to think of it. He’s always been good at reading people, at understanding them, sensing how they feel, but Seokmin is difficult to get a read on. Minghao itches to touch him, to feel his warmth and let the gentle hum of someone else’s emotions fill the empty space in his chest.

It takes Minghao by surprise, when Seokmin reaches out to touch his knee again, like Minghao wanted his touch so badly that he willed it to happen, and continues, “I was looking at the door and I didn’t see anyone and then I had to think, why am I staring at this door? I’m just here to pick up my bag--which I do still need to grab, fuck, I should’ve just done that earlier, it’s got all my lesson plans in it--but then I started walking towards the door again and suddenly you just, you just popped out of thin air, and I remembered that I was helping you, and--” at this point, Seokmin breaks off, breathing heavy, hand trembling even as he’s gripping tightly onto Minghao’s knee, and all Minghao wants is to hold Seokmin until he stops shaking.

A swell of rage overtakes him for a moment, that in order for him to get back to his life someone else-- _Seokmin_ \--has to suffer, but he swallows it down before he reaches out, letting one palm rub circles into the wide expanse of Seokmin’s back.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he says, trying to project comfort and calm. He’s not sure it works, but after a few minutes the rise and fall of Seokmin’s chest stills, his breathing evening out. Minghao keeps making those slow circles, trying to convince himself that it’s for Seokmin’s sake instead of his own.

“Sorry,” Seokmin mumbles eventually, and Minghao wants to roll his eyes, tell him not to apologize for something that’s clearly not his fault, but he swallows it down, keeps stroking Seokmin’s spine.

“It’s okay,” he repeats instead, nudging the neck of Seokmin’s shirt to the side just enough to brush calming fingers along the golden skin of one shoulder, trying to hide the way the contact makes him shiver at the overwhelming rush of emotion, sensation, feeling that isn’t his own. It’s heady and familiar, except for all the ways it feels like a revelation, the way even Seokmin’s fear and confusion and anger are tinged with warmth.

Minghao could bask in it for hours.

But the clock is still ticking, steady and implacable, so Minghao forces himself to pull away and shuffle around until he can look at Seokmin head-on. He wants to be able to see him--and, selfishly, he wants to be seen for as long as he can manage, just in case.

“Well,” Minghao finally says. “That fucking sucks, huh?”

Seokmin snorts a laugh, and Minghao giggles automatically, adrenaline and the slowly subsiding rush of someone else’s emotions making him light-headed and punchy.

When he looks up, Seokmin is looking back, fond smile curling the corners of his mouth. It drops after a moment, and Seokmin sighs. “I didn’t think I’d forget,” he admits. “I just thought it’d only affect you, I guess.”

“I didn’t know it could,” Minghao offers. “I didn’t think it’d be able to touch anyone else. If I had known...well, I don’t know that I would have done anything different, but I’m sorry anyways.”

“It’s not your fault,” Seokmin shrugs. “But that explains some of it right?” Minghao can see the way Seokmin is twisting a ring on his pinky finger around and around and around, nervous and scared, but lets him change the subject without question.

“Some of it,” Minghao thinks again of the overwhelming pressure that filled him as he scrambled away from the museum, the unbearable force tugging him down down down, “but not everything.”

“You want to try and leave again?”

“No. But I’ve got to.”

It’s quiet, nothing but the faint chatter of bugs and the occasional hum of cars passing to disturb the calm of night.

“I can go with you,” Seokmin suggests, when Minghao finally stands. His chin is tilted to look up at Minghao, suddenly towering above him, and Minghao wants to lean down, cup the jut of his Adam’s apple in the palm of his hand and drink from it.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Minghao says as he turns to walk the same path as Seokmin, “but I guess we’ll see.”

He glances back at Seokmin after a few steps, catches his gaze and offers up a smile, as real as he can manage.

Now that he’s paying attention, he can feel the pressure setting seed at the base of his skull. He pauses, takes note, and then continues more slowly, one sure step after the other, until the pressure begins to grow roots that make it difficult to breathe.

When he turns around, Seokmin is right where he left him.

“I want to try something,” Minghao calls, and Seokmin perks up, slowly bringing himself to standing. There are grass stains on his pants and bags under his eyes deep enough that Minghao wants to wince in sympathy. “Come here.”

Minghao means it as a request, but he thinks it comes out as more of an order than he intended. Seokmin doesn't seem to mind, at least, already striding quickly towards Minghao.

Just like he thought, the pressure immediately lessens the closer Seokmin gets, until he’s twenty feet away and Minghao feels nothing but the cool night breeze and the warmth of Seokmin’s gaze.

Ten feet closer and Minghao thinks he could float away, a wisp of smoke.

Five feet closer and Minghao closes his eyes, holds out one palm, _stop_.

“Can you feel that?”

There’s something powerful and warm coming from Seokmin, some kind of formless, directionless energy that Minghao can sense now that it’s not draped around him like a caress. The only thing Minghao has to compare it to is the pulse of Bohai’s lunar magic, cool and blue that waxed and waned with the tides, constantly slipping through his fingers and trickling down the length of his back like sea water.

His eyes are closed still but he can tell when Seokmin comes closer, the rustling of the grass and the intensifying of that warmth.

“Feel what?”

“I don’t know, but it’s like…sunlight. Hot tea. Steamed buns.”

Seokmin laughs. Minghao’s eyes flutter open, and when he meets Seokmin’s eyes he has to take a step back to steady himself. Whatever it is, it’s coming from Seokmin, drifting off his golden skin in dizzying eddies, wrapping around Minghao like a gift.

“You really can’t feel it?” Minghao asks, and watches as Seokmin’s face falls.

“Ah, no, I’m sorry. Is it bad?”

“It’s good,” Minghao says, because it is. “I think it’s the reason I can leave the museum now.”

“So the curse is broken?” Seokmin looks so excited it hurts Minghao’s heart. Who taught him to feel things so honestly, fully without fear?

“No,” Minghao says. He hesitates before he adds, “not yet.” He wants to hope, but it feels so delicate, so fragile where it tries to settle carefully just below his collarbones, and Minghao isn’t sure he remembers how to be gentle.

He starts making his way back toward the museum entrance and Seokmin follows, unquestioning. “Let’s get your bag first, and then I’ve got some other things we can try.”

🌗

Seokmin’s bag is old and faded, looks like it’s weathered a thousand storms, and is covered in meticulously stitched on Yu-Gi-Oh patches.

“Really?” Minghao can’t help but say when he notices. Seokmin immediately clutches the bag to his chest, so the only thing visible is the top of Bakura’s head.

“It’s a classic!”

Minghao doesn’t answer, just laughs and laughs and grabs a pad of pink sticky notes and a pen from the welcome desk.

“I’ll be right back,” he calls over his shoulder, and doesn’t wait for Seokmin to answer before making his way back to the pedestal that he’s woken up stuck to every evening.

Up here, without Seokmin’s warm presence at his side, Minghao feels set adrift. If everything goes well, he’ll never return. He’ll never have to feel the unforgiving encroach of stone slowing his lungs, stilling his heart, turning him cold.

If it doesn’t go well...he’ll either get dragged back here and become marble permanently, or if he’s lucky he’ll be able to squeak out a few more days before the curse’s power wanes completely. He’s fairly sure that meeting Seokmin used up whatever little bit of outstanding luck he had left though, so he’s not counting on it.

He scribbles a note, a simple _Not really a statue, just cursed, sorry_. He studies it, the careful lines of his Hangul, and then scribbles out the _sorry_. He presses the pen down too hard and the paper tears, but it doesn’t matter, not really, and he leaves the tattered note stuck to the top of his little pedestal, a bright splash of paint against the pale marble.

When he makes his way back down to the welcome desk, Seokmin is waiting by the door, bag slung over one shoulder. The Yu-Gi-Oh patches must be on the other side because Minghao can’t see them.

He’s not sure why, but something about Seokmin’s gentle readiness makes him say, “I thought about setting this place on fire, you know. Before you stumbled in here.”

Seokmin looks taken aback.

“But wouldn’t that...wouldn’t you be hurt?” His eyes are wide and wet, dewy like the grass just outside, and Minghao doesn’t know how to answer without making Seokmin upset. At the time, just a few hours ago, he didn’t think he’d ever escape this place. That he’d be stuck as the statue he hated so much for the rest of time, alone in darkness, and he decided that was a fate worse than death.

He can’t tell that to Seokmin though, so he just shrugs. “I wasn’t going to do anything until right before sunrise.” It’s not quite a lie. Not quite the truth, either.

Seokmin heaves a breath, a small sigh of relief, and Minghao is simultaneously grateful and concerned that Seokmin seems to take everything he says at face value.

He wonders if Seokmin is taken advantage of often, if his good soul--the one that Minghao felt warm and thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings under his fingertips when he touched Seokmin’s neck--is used against him by others.

He hopes not.

“I think I need to leave,” Minghao says, instead of asking Seokmin if he has anyone who looks out for him. “If I’m far away when the sun comes up, maybe that’ll be enough.”

“Okay,” Seokmin agrees readily. “I can drive us to my apartment then, since you won’t have a place to stay.”

He says it with a confidence Minghao hasn’t felt for years, sure that this will work, that Minghao will need somewhere to stay after they break the curse. For the first time in years, he lets himself believe it.

“If you’re sure,” Minghao says, because he really won’t have anywhere else to go, if this works.

Seokmin’s answering grin is as wide open as the sky.

🌘

It’s ten minutes until sunup and Minghao is riding shotgun in Seokmin’s beat up old car, head hanging stubbornly out the window despite the nighttime chill, empty water bottles and takeout containers rolling around underfoot, proof that Seokmin exists outside the liminal space of the museum.

Minghao had only visited Seoul a few times before, and he had forgotten how loud it is, even in the early hours of the morning. He can feel it pulsing with life, millions of people sleeping and waking and breathing and fucking and crying and _living_ , a steady beat that lives in Minghao’s chest, a secondary heartbeat.

Everything feels like more, bigger and louder and overwhelming Minghao’s senses after years of being cut off from the world. When he closes his eyes it all washes over him, the crackle of awareness of the people they pass by, in their cars and walking along the street. They’re not close enough for Minghao to get anything other than the barest twinge of recognition, _this is someone, this is someone, this is someone_ ping ponging around in his head.

It’s too much, all of a sudden, so many people after so long spent alone.

“Distract me?” he breathes, when Seokmin slows to a careful stop for a red light.

When Minghao looks at the dash, it’s flashing 5:17AM. It feels like a threat.

“Okay,” Seokmin answers, easy. “What was he like?”

“Who?”

“Your friend--the one who did this to you.”

“Seokmin,” Minghao says, surprised. Seokmin’s eyes are still focused on the road. “I didn’t know you were so nosey,” Minghao teases.

“I’m not!” Seokmin glances over, expression open, pleading, a small pout on his full mouth. Minghao wants to press the pads of his fingers to it.

“He was,” Minghao starts, flashes of memory going off behind his eyes like a polaroid, _snap_ Bohai pressing slices of grapefruit to his lips, _snap_ Bohai sweat soaked and grinning while they painted their bedroom blue (for the ocean, for the moon, for them), _snap_ the soft wet heat of Bohai’s kisses, _snap_ the moment Minghao touched him and knew it was over. “He was everything.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Seokmin’s eyes are still on the road ahead. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

“No no, it’s fine, it’s been--well, it’s been years.”

“But you haven’t talked to anyone since him?”

Minghao shakes his head

“How do I compare?” Seokmin asks. It’s a joke, clearly. He’s trying to lighten the mood. But Minghao can’t help but look at him, staring at the bags under his eyes, the careful way he maneuvers the car, hands firmly at 10 and 2. His shoulders are wide, his mouth quick to smile. The lines of his body are softened by warmth and the golden light of sunrise.

“You don’t,” he says, simply. “You haven’t fucking cursed me so you’re not even on the same level.”

Seokmin laughs, shocked and bright, eyes disappearing with the force of his smile.

“You’re funny,” he says, breathless.

Minghao feels weightless, like the heaviness of stone has never touched him. He wants to live in this moment forever.

When he remembers to look at the clock, it’s flashing 5:28AM. Three minutes after sun up. There’s no lingering heaviness, no itch at the back of his head that he’s been steadily ignoring since he stepped foot off the museum grounds.

It feels like a homecoming.

🌑

Seokmin’s apartment is small and cramped and filled with the clutter of everyday life. Half empty coffee mugs and pens with their caps chewed on are littered over every available surface, the rest filled with mismatched candles and pictures. And there are pictures everywhere, hanging on the walls, crowded around on shelves and counters and stuck on the surface of Seokmin’s refrigerator, evidence of the way Seokmin’s smile is always bright and welcoming, evidence that he has people who he cares for, who care for him enough to throw him parties with giant homemade banners that say _HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEOKMINNIE_ and to smear icing across the sharp jut of his nose.

“I like your apartment,” Minghao says softly, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the way he’s disrupting Seokmin’s life. He was focused, before, on simply getting out, getting free. He never thought about the logistics, about how he doesn’t have any money for food, a place to stay, a way to get back home.

Seokmin snorts, and when Minghao looks at him he’s blushing. “You don’t have to lie, it’s okay. I know it’s a mess right now.”

Minghao feels, stupidly, hurt. Cracked open and raw, a rotten egg oozing out of its splintered shell. “I’m not lying, it’s nice. It feels homey.” Minghao remembers abruptly that what he called home for years probably doesn’t exist anymore. Bohai had mentioned wanting to move a few weeks before their fight, and Minghao can’t imagine going back even if he had the money to get there.

“Thank you,” Seokmin says, bashful now. He clears his throat. Minghao tries to pull himself back together but he’s not sure if it works. “You can stay here as long as you want, until you get back on your feet. I’ve got a friend that helps people who have been cursed - if you want I can get in touch with him and maybe he can help? I can call him right now, he’s probably getting up soon anyway.”

Minghao looks at the clock, sees that it’s just after six in the morning, and shakes his head. His head is spinning, thinking about the fact that the reward for breaking his curse will be fucking _paper work_ , and the absurdity of it makes him want to laugh.

“I don’t want to bother anyone.”

“You won’t be! I’ll be bothering him, and Seungcheol hyung owes me one anyway.” Seokmin smiles again, bright as the sun that’s rising just over his left shoulder.

Minghao shakes his head, firm. “No, I think I’d rather wait.” He only has one person he wants to talk to, but he’s not sure he can bring himself to dial his mother’s number right now. Minghao thinks he might fall apart entirely the minute he hears her voice, and for all of Seokmin’s comforting warmth, he knows he’d rather be alone for that. The only other person he talked to regularly was Bohai, too caught up in the intensity of their relationship to spend time with friends or coworkers.

“If you’re sure…” Seokmin trails off, eyes searching. Minghao isn’t sure what he’ll find.

“One day,” Minghao offers. “If it’s alright, I just want one day before I have to go back and figure everything out.”

Seokmin reaches out and takes one of Minghao’s hands in his. Minghao expects to feel the bittersweet tang of pity, but instead all he gets is sunny understanding.

“Alright, we can do that,” Seokmin says, and Minghao relaxes into the warmth of his touch.

🌒

Seokmin makes them breakfast, instant ramen and spam that’s just on the wrong side of burnt, but Minghao scarfs it down like it’s one of his mother’s homemade dumplings.

“I haven’t eaten a full meal in,” Minghao thinks to himself, “almost a year.”

“What?!”

“The curse didn’t require it, and I usually wasn’t hungry until pretty late, so I would just grab some chips or snacks from the museum shops.”

Seokmin looks even more aghast at this than anything else.

“I have to call Mingyu,” Seokmin announces, as though that will mean anything to Minghao. When Seokmin notices his confusion, he clarifies, “Mingyu is one of my friends, but more importantly he owns a restaurant a few blocks away and he makes the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life, I have to call him and tell him that he has to come over and fix us dinner. Or lunch. Whichever.”

“No no, that’s--”

“Myungho, I’m sorry, but it’s happening. He owes me a favor anyway.”

Minghao raises an eyebrow. He feels something he’s not sure how to name simmering in his chest. “You’ve got a lot of friends in high places, huh?”

Seokmin grins and says “I guess I do,” fondness spilling from his mouth like a summer shower.

🌓

It’s not until noon that Minghao feels the exhaustion and fear and years of stress catch up to him, and he finds his eyes drooping shut without his input, snapping his back head when he feels himself loll too far forward. They’re watching something on Seokmin’s small TV, some multi-part documentary about nature magic and the way plants respond to different people’s energy.

The third time Minghao startles out of half sleep, Seokmin gently suggests that he move to Seokmin’s bed.

“No,” he says immediately, “I’m not going to--I can’t just take your bed.”

“I’ll be fine, the couch is comfortable anyway!”

“No,” Minghao repeats, and he wants to continue, to say something else (he wants to say will you stay with me, don’t leave, please don’t leave me alone, I’m scared) but he’s a coward, so instead he says, “I’d like to have the TV stay on while I sleep.” It’s a half-truth but it’s all he’s brave enough for.

Seokmin looks at him. It still feels strange, to be looked at. To be seen. Every time they lock eyes Minghao feels a warm flush creep over him, a bone-deep feeling of satisfaction, content, _right_.

“Let’s watch one more episode,” Seokmin says, and Minghao feels more than just seen--he feels understood. It’s heady, and he wants to curl up in Seokmin’s lap, wants to lay himself bare in front of him, wants Seokmin to know him inside and out, to rewrite the memory of Bohai on his skin.

But that’s not fair to Seokmin, who only helped Minghao because he has a soul soft as tree moss, so Minghao squashes it down and nods and resigns himself to sleeping on the uncomfortable couch, because Seokmin was lying; even though Minghao hasn’t sat on a couch in years, he knows that this one is particularly lumpy.

🌔

It’s five minutes after sundown and the museum is on fire.

Minghao knows because when he’s released from his pedestal his lungs fill with the acrid tang of smoke, and when he opens his eyes all he can see are billowing clouds of white and grey and ash. He stumbles down and winces, curses aloud because he stepped on something sharp and painful. When he squints he sees that the two statues that usually flank him have been ripped apart, smashed into pieces, stark white jutting up from the dark floor like shards of bone.

He coughs and crouches low, ignoring the splash of bright red that he leaves in his wake, his heel sliced open and pulsing with pain, to make his way toward one of the exits on the ground floor.

The upper level is filled with smoke but the lower level is aflame, monstrous walls of fire devouring everything in site and billowing ash, and Minghao almost wishes for stone lungs again. He can feel ash coating the roof of his mouth, his tongue, can feel it getting stuck in his eyelashes as his eyes well up with tears, can feel how even the cut on his foot is no longer sticky, too saturated with debris.

The fire should be hot, he should be dripping with sweat by now, but instead all he feels is dark, unending cold. The closer he gets to the lurid orange and yellow flames, the colder he gets, body wracked with shivers, movements clumsy and slow.

But he keeps moving, ignoring the overwhelming chill and proximity of the fire, keeps moving toward the emergency exit that he can still see blinking red and hopeful just down the hall, just a little bit further. He can barely breathe now, hiccuping in little gasps through his shirt even as he feels his body getting heavier and heavier, his head lighter, the ash in front of his eyes clumping up until he can barely see, but he has to get out, the museum’s on fire, the curse won’t work now, right, not when something like this is happening, and Minghao crawls, doesn’t need to see, not really, not when he walked this museum for hours on end in the dark of night.

He crawls until he feels the door under his graceless fingertips, pushes it open so he can stumble through it and--

🌕

“Myungho, Myungho, oh my god, wake up, please,” is what greets him when he gasps awake, chest heaving, body wracked with shivers, the comforting weight of Seokmin’s hands on his chest the only place he feels warm.

“Cold,” he grits out, jaw tight and aching.

“Blankets, I’ve got so many blankets, hold on, let me just--” Seokmin scrambles off the couch and Minghao wants to cry out for him to stay, but before he can do anything but stare blankly at the space Seokmin vacated, he’s back, throwing a clearly homemade afghan over Minghao’s frame, ghastly neon yellows and blues and oranges clashing horribly even as its weight immediately makes Minghao sink a little further into the couch.

“Sorry.”

Seokmin looks like he’s about to argue with Minghao, like he’s about to tell him that he has nothing to apologize for, but he stops short when Minghao shakes his head tiredly.

The few inches of space that Seokmin has left between them feels like an olive branch, but Minghao doesn’t want an olive branch. He shifts closer, until the warmth of Seokmin’s thigh is pressed against his, and he shivers again.

“Do you need another blanket?”

“No.”

“Alright.”

“Do you want--” Seokmin says, after several long moments of silence, but Minghao cuts him off before he can finish, head clouded with the overwhelming need to get closer.

“Can we just--” Minghao starts, but what he wants right now is to hold Seokmin in his arms, to press the length of his body against Seokmin and bask in the sunny warmth of his skin, his smile, his aura until he forgets about his nightmare.

He can’t say that, though, can’t ask for that when Seokmin has already given him so much--given him freedom--for nothing at all.

Instead, he looks at Seokmin who’s looking back at him wide-eyed and careful, gaze darting down when Minghao licks at his chapped lips and.

Oh.

He does it again, deliberate this time, lets the wet of his tongue emphasize the plush of his mouth and tracks as Seokmin stares, a brief flash of hunger sparking in his gaze.

Minghao knows the hunger of wanting, the familiar ache of it. He’s never been able to deny himself the things that he aches for. The last thing he had wanted, _needed_ with the whole of himself, was Bohai. He wanted Bohai, so he had him.

The problem, Minghao realizes now, was in the keeping.

“What are you thinking about?” Seokmin asks, and the surprise of it makes Minghao answer more honestly than he would otherwise.

“You.”

“Me?” Seokmin’s eyebrows are furrowed, head tilted to the side.

Minghao huffs a laugh, and feels the anger that’s been keeping him warm all these years dissipate, melt, drip into a heat that he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

He _wants_.

He can see that Seokmin wants, too.

It’s almost unconscious, the way he leans forward into Seokmin’s space, pressing closer to all that warmth. Minghao tips his head up, mouths just inches apart.

Seokmin’s gaze feels like sunlight.

For a moment, Seokmin looks surprised. Eyes wide and round as Minghao moves closer still, until there’s no doubt what he intends to do. He waits one second, two, three, until Seokmin’s eyes flutter shut, and then he closes the distance between them like a door slamming.

Minghao wishes, distantly, that he had met Seokmin somewhere else, some time else, before he became a creature stripped bare of humanity, consisting only of animal desire. Seokmin deserves something tender, something sweet and gentle and real, and Minghao wants to be the one to give it to him. But as soon as their lips touch Minghao feels his whole body go up in flames, mouth opening on a gasp as he rips the afghan off and launches himself gracelessly into Seokmin’s wide lap.

Seokmin’s hands are on his hips, heavy and hot, holding Minghao with a grip that makes him whimper as Seokmin slips his tongue in his open mouth.

“Touch me,” Minghao demands when Seokmin pulls away. His eyes are wide and his emotions are thrumming hotly under Minghao’s fingers where they’re tangled in the back of Seokmin’s hair, and Minghao wants _more_.

“Wait wait,” Seokmin breathes when Minghao tries to pull him back in, and the urgency in his tone makes Minghao pause. Seokmin swallows and averts his eyes, the nervous spark of his emotions making the hair on Minghao’s arms raise. “You know I didn’t bring you back here because I expected you to fuck me, right? We don’t have to do anything, I could get you a hotel or you could stay with someone who actually has a guest room, or--”

“Seokmin-ah,” Minghao interrupts, and revels in the way Seokmin melts at his name, “I know that. I wouldn’t still be here if I thought that was the case. But,” and here he lets his weight settle more firmly in Seokmin’s lap, scoots closer so their chests are pressed together and Minghao can feel them expand with every breath, “I want this. Will you let me have it?”

Seokmin stands so abruptly that Minghao yelps, almost tumbling off his lap onto the floor, but Seokmin catches him under his thighs just in time, hoisting Minghao up and striding confidently down a narrow hallway and into the one room Minghao hasn’t been in yet.

It’s small, just like the rest of Seokmin’s apartment, crowded with furniture and knick knacks and a messy, unmade bed that Seokmin sets him down on gently.

“Come back here,” Minghao commands the minute Seokmin moves away, missing the warmth of his skin and the already-comforting rhythm of his feelings dancing under his fingertips.

“Impatient,” Seokmin laughs as he rummages around in one of his dresser drawers.

“I haven’t been touched in years, I think I’m allowed a little impatience.”

“I’ll touch you all you want Myungho-yah, but I figured we might need this.” He throws a half empty bottle of lube next to Minghao’s hip and then follows it down, warm hands pushing Minghao’s shirt up and off over his head, trailing wet kisses down his sternum that make Minghao’s hips buck involuntarily and a whine scratch its way out of his throat.

“Oh, fuck,” Minghao breathes when Seokmin pulls his own shirt off, the soft bulge of his arms and width of his torso making Minghao ache to be under him. He’s missed a lot of things about the world, day-dreamed about the food he’d eat, the places he’d go if he ever made it out, but he never let himself think too much about sex, the overwhelming tactility of someone else opening up for him, of his body slicked up and welcoming someone else inside.

He can’t stop thinking about it now, faced with Seokmin’s bare skin and the desire Minghao can sense everywhere they touch.

“What do you want?” Seokmin asks, dragging one palm up Minghao’s neck and jaw, turning his head to face Seokmin. He looks beautiful, confident and sure, while Minghao feels like he could fly apart at any moment.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, just touch me, please,” Minghao whines, and Seokmin does, drags Minghao in until their lips can crash together again, wet and slick with saliva, and Minghao lets go.

It doesn’t take long for Minghao to urge Seokmin out of the rest of his clothes, plush thighs and hard dick making Minghao itch to put his hands all over him, to touch until his head is swimming with that strange warmth that Seokmin is still emitting like a lighthouse.

When they’re both naked and tipped on their sides, bodies pressed so tightly together Minghao can barely breathe, he gasps, “Fuck me Seokmin-ah, please,” into the hollow of Seokmin’s throat, grinding his aching cock into the softness of Seokmin’s belly. He can feel the way his words make Seokmin burn white hot with arousal, and his hips twitch again, seeking more friction, anything to relieve the pressure building inside him.

But Seokmin doesn’t fuck him, not even when Minghao begs for it with garbled words and wails he didn’t realize he could make, not even when Minghao grabs at Seokmin’s wrist and presses hot fingers between his cheeks.

“Do you want my fingers?” Seokmin asks, amusement flashing under his skin like an irritating little lightning bug, and Minghao growls out a rough, “No, want you to _fuck_ me.”

“Not this time,” Seokmin soothes, and Minghao wants to argue with him, to assert that he can take it, he’s not weak and he _wants_ it, but then Seokmin slides one wide, slick finger inside and Minghao already feels like he might shake apart at the stretch.

There’s not much lotion to be had in a museum lost and found. Even less lube. Minghao doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s not sure he could even take Seokmin’s dick right now with the way he can’t stop clenching and writhing on just one of his fingers, no matter how much he wants it.

Seokmin looks and feels so smug at Minghao’s reaction that he has to reach out and grab Seokmin’s dick, hard and flushed red against his belly where he’s lying next to Minghao, and he squeezes tightly, rubbing a little meanly at the wet slit until it spits out more precum and Seokmin moans, loud and broken.

“Another,” Minghao pants, because he’s always been greedy, always wanted too much too soon and he doesn’t plan on stopping now.

At least this time Seokmin listens, pausing to squirt more lube over his fingers and yelping when Minghao pinches at one of his soft thighs, not impatient this time but teasing, playful. God, he’s missed sex.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” Seokmin breathes as he slowly, so slowly pushes two fingers back into Minghao, and Minghao would laugh at the way he’s practically reciting the script of shitty porn, but he’s right. Minghao used to be able to take two, three fingers easily, barely had the patience for prep, revelled in the ache of being too full too fast. But now he’s seeing stars with Seokmin barely two knuckles deep, his body no longer familiar with the way it used to move, to bloom under the touch of someone else so easily.

When Seokmin’s fingers brush deeper inside him he wails, clamping his hand around Seokmin’s wrist so he won’t move away, and demands, “More,” in a voice so scratchy and desperate it makes him wince.

But Minghao can feel the pulse of heat that shoots through Seokmin, the way he wants so badly to be good for Minghao, to make him come on his fingers and hear every noise Minghao can’t help but let out, so he doesn’t bother trying to hold anything back.

Seokmin pushes in deeper and Minghao clutches at the width of his shoulders, digging his fingers in until he thinks he might leave marks. When Seokmin kisses him again it’s even wetter than before, sloppy and uncoordinated and so filthy Minghao clenches around Seokmin’s fingers and comes, keening into Seokmin’s mouth while his hips saw back and forth desperately; forward into the soft warmth of Seokmin’s stomach, back onto the length of his clever fingers, until the last of the aftershocks shiver through him and he stills, too tired and spent to move.

Well, almost.

Seokmin lets out a whispered moan when Minghao’s hands slide down his back and palm lazily at the generous flesh of his ass, squeezing lightly before coming back to Seokmin’s dick, still hard and leaking between them.

“I could blow you,” Minghao offers. It’s gratifying, the way heat spikes through Seokmin again at the rough scrape of Minghao’s voice, at his words. He feels powerful, in control in a way that should feel foreign after such a long absence, but that Minghao finds fits him like a second skin.

“I’m not gonna last long,” Seokmin laughs, one palm coming down to overlap with Minghao’s on his cock.

“Alright,” Minghao agrees readily, and watches with hungry eyes as he strokes Seokmin off tight and fast, mouthing at the thickness of his neck and the dip of his collarbones, nipping little bites until he can feel Seokmin aching for more and then biting down and sucking, leaving fresh bruises in his wake, ink blots on parchment.

Seokmin comes with a loud, shuddery moan, and Minghao can feel it, the sharp pleasure of another release making his eyes droop and his body more sluggish than ever. It doesn’t feel like the heavy, gravitational pull of the curse, though. It just feels like he’s come twice and needs a nap.

He tries to tell Seokmin as much, wriggling closer despite the mess between them, but he drifts off before he can even open his mouth.

☀️

It’s thirty minutes until sundown and Minghao wakes up slowly, turning away from the soft yellow light trying to pry his eyelids open with a grunt of dissatisfaction. The source of the light giggles, and that makes Minghao crack an eye, looking directly into the full force of Seokmin’s wide grin.

“Why are you so bright?” he mumbles, because he never did ask, back in the museum. Or at least, Seokmin never really answered.

“My eomma used to say it’s because I’m too nice to be moody, but Jeonghan hyung always says it’s because of his blessing,” Seokmin says, and then grabs Minghao’s hand to haul him upright. “Anyway, Mingyu-yah said he’ll be here soon to make us dinner so we should get dressed!”

Minghao follows the now-familiar touch of Seokmin’s hands urging him toward his dresser to pick out something to wear. He steps into a too-big pair of boxers and tries not to think about all the things he needs to do, the clothes he needs to buy, the people he needs to get in touch with. He asked Seokmin for one day, and Seokmin seems happy to let him have it. Minghao has time, now.

He might be upright but his brain is still barely awake, and it takes a few minutes for him to sift through Seokmin’s words.

“Wait, who’s Jeonghan? And how exactly did he bless you?”

Seokmin lights up, the way Minghao’s starting to recognize he does when he’s talking about his friends, and starts to chatter, “Ah, that’s right, you don’t know hyung! He’s a friend I met when we were both little. Other kids were always rude to him because he’s a little different and I thought that was dumb so then we became best friends and we’ve been best friends ever since! Oh, and then I introduced him to Seungcheol hyung and they fell in love and got married last year--I know I have a picture of them around here, where did I--yes! Here they are, look.”

Seokmin proudly holds out a picture in a simple wooden frame, clearly taken at a wedding. There are two men holding each other in the photo, one of them with a mop of gently curling dark hair and a strong jaw, smiling so wide Minghao can see the pink of his gums. The other man is so beautiful it takes Minghao’s breath away, his hair long and silken, a crown of sunflowers resting on his head. They’re looking at each other with so much tender affection it makes Minghao ache.

It’s candid, a little blurry, not the crisp HD shots that people pay thousands of dollars for. It looks like it was taken by a friend, someone who saw this moment and cared enough to try and capture it.

“They look very happy together,” Minghao says honestly, and Seokmin just beams even wider.

“Yeah, they’re the best. Oh, but anyway, after the wedding Jeonghan hyung said he was gonna give me his blessing, which was really sweet of him, so now I guess I’m blessed!”

Minghao stares at Seokmin, still not quite getting it. There’s something missing. Minghao backtracks through their conversation, trying to find the thread of it that got lost somewhere in Seokmin’s loud enthusiasm.

“When you said Jeonghan was a little different, what did you mean?” he finally asks, as Seokmin opens another dresser and pulls out a few pairs of paints. They all look too big for Minghao’s thin hips, but he can always use a belt.

“Well, he’s a sun spirit, so people thought he’d be rude to them, but he never was,” Seokmin says absently, grabbing a soft looking pink sweater from a different drawer and pulling it on. It gets caught on his ears and Minghao huffs a laugh as Seokmin struggles to pull it down all the way.

And then Seokmin’s words finally get through to him, and he looks back again at the breathtaking man with the long, silver hair. Sun spirits are known for being aloof and self-righteous, rarely bothering to speak with humans, let alone befriend them. Let alone fall in love with one and get _married_. They’re powerful, and Minghao has only ever heard of one other person who was given the blessing of the sun. And that happened in the 1800s.

“So, your hyung gave you one of the most powerful natural blessings in the world, and you didn’t think to mention that when I asked about it back at the museum?”

Seokmin’s head finally manages to poke its way out of the collar of the sweater. He looks golden and bashful. Minghao wants desperately to kiss him again.

“I didn’t think about it!” Seokmin defends, and Minghao just laughs when he throws another sweater, this one deep green, at Minghao’s face. “And besides,” he continues as Minghao pulls the sweater on, “only my friends know about hyung anyway.”

“Are we friends?” Minghao asks, before he can stop himself. He thinks it would be nice, to be Seokmin’s friend.

“Of course we are.”

The sweater is warm, but Seokmin’s gaze is warmer. It makes Minghao want to push him, poke at him until he turns pink.

“Do you usually make your friends come so hard they pass out?” he teases.

Seokmin thinks about it for a second, neck and ears flushing slightly. “Um, I mean they usually don’t pass out, but...”

“Oh.” Minghao’s surprised, but the thought of Seokmin with any of the beautiful people that he’s got pictures of all around his apartment makes Minghao feel hotter than he’d like to admit.

“Not if I’m dating someone though!”

“Okay.”

“Which I’d like to do, with you. Date you, I mean. If you want!” Seokmin looks like he wants to put his entire foot in his mouth. Minghao can’t stop the slow spread of his smile. “Or at least take you out on a date sometime, maybe.”

Minghao wants, more than anything, to say yes. He can think of about a million reasons he should say no, starting with the fact that he’s known Seokmin for less than twenty four hours, ending with the fact that the last person he dated cursed him. But he’s never been good at denying himself the things he wants.

“Okay,” he says, and they’re not even touching but Minghao can feel the swell of emotion that sweeps through Seokmin, spilling over his edges and spreading out like a flash flood, until Minghao is soaked to the skin with it. “I’d like that.”

When Minghao looks at the clock, it’s five minutes after sundown. He takes a deep breath, revels in the weight of it in his lungs, and reaches out for Seokmin’s hand.

Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

🌑☀️

**Author's Note:**

> this was a labor of love; i hope you enjoyed it 💗
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/scissorghost)


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